AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA (continued 32)

Escaping at length from the hands of his tormentors, Park continued his journey in a south-easterly direction, passing, as before, through several negro kingdoms, where, however, the Moors seemed to exercise a powerful influence, and where, consequently, he was obliged to undergo much suffering and insult, although, even in the depths of his distress, he always found sympathy and compassion from some poor negro. On the 21st of July, 1796, he was approaching a large town called Sego, the capital of the kingdom of Bambarra, in company with a party of negroes, who were proceeding thither, and who entertained him on the way with accounts of the traffic which went on at this town, and of the Great Water, or Joliba, which flowed past it. This stream Park had no doubt was the Niger, of which he was in search; and so it proved. ‘We rode together,’ he says, ‘through some marshy ground, where, as I was anxiously looking around for the river, one of them called out, “Geo affilli!” (“See the water!”) and looking forwards, I saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission—​the long-sought-for majestic Niger glittering to the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly to the eastward. I hastened to the brink, and having drunk of the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler of all things for having thus far crowned my endeavors with success.’

Having thus been successful in reaching the banks of the long-sought Niger, Park would have pursued his journey along them so as to ascertain its farther course, and even trace it to its termination; but his entire destitution of everything necessary for such an enterprise, and the reports which he received of the bigotry of the Moors who ruled in the districts through which he must pass, prevented him from advancing farther than Silla, a town considerably to the east of Sego. Accordingly, having collected all the information he could respecting the course of the river beyond this point—​having done all that he could towards the settlement of the question of the course of the Niger—​having ascertained the existence of large trading cities in the interior of Africa, some of which he had visited, and the position of three others of which (namely, Jenné, Timbuctoo, and Houssa) he had learnt by accurate inquiry—​having, moreover, accumulated a vast mass of information respecting the manners, customs, and social condition of the natives of Central Africa—​Park returned to the coast along the banks of the Niger, and consequently by a route different from that which he had adopted on his journey inland. He reached Pisania on the 10th of June, 1797, having thus been absent twenty-one months in the interior of Africa. He arrived in London on Christmas Day in the same year; was received with great enthusiasm by all classes; prepared the narrative of his journey for publication; and at length, in 1800, having in the meantime married, he settled as a medical practitioner in Peebles.

Park’s success gave an impulse to the spirit of discovery, and two attempts were made shortly after his return to follow up what he had begun. ‘A German, named Hornemann, undertook to penetrate into the continent by way of Egypt, and succeeded in reaching Fezzan, whence he wrote, in April, 1800, to England; but no particulars relative to his future history are known. He was never again heard of till 1824, when Captain Clapperton, who followed the same route with a better issue, learnt that the German traveler had succeeded in penetrating from Fezzan to Nyffee, or Nouffie, on the Niger, where he fell a victim to dysentery. Hornemann’s papers had been all accidentally burnt.

‘In 1804, another enterprising spirit, Mr. Nicholls, endeavored to enter the African interior from the Calabar coast, in the Gulf of Guinea, but, at the very outset of his journey, he also perished from the pestilential fever of those latitudes.’ At length Mr. Park—​who, notwithstanding the public respect and domestic comfort which he enjoyed in the situation in which he had settled down, still hankered after a life of wandering in Africa, avowing, it is said, to Sir Walter Scott, who was one of his most intimate friends, that he preferred it to any other—​consented, on the invitation of government, to undertake a second journey. ‘All requisite preparations for the enterprise were completed before the end of January, and on the 30th of that month 1805, Park set sail from Portsmouth, in the Crescent transport, taking on board with him from the dockyards of that place four or five artificers.’ He was accompanied also by his brother-in-law, Mr. Anderson, and a friend, Mr. Scott. When, on the 21st of March 1805, the transport anchored in the Goree Roads, near the mouth of the Gambia, and ‘Mr. Park’s purposes were made known here, almost every man of the garrison volunteered his services for the expedition. The traveler selected thirty-five able-bodied men, and also accepted the offered services of one officer, Lieutenant Martyn, thinking it of consequence to have in the party some one already acquainted with the soldiers. Two experienced seamen from the Squirrel frigate were added to the party with the view of benefiting by their valuable assistance in sailing down the Niger.

‘Park communicated these arrangements by letter to the colonial department, and thus he describes his departure from Goree:—​“On the morning of the 6th of April we embarked the soldiers, in number thirty-five men. They jumped into the boat in the highest spirits, and bade adieu to Goree with repeated huzzas. I believe that every man in the garrison would have embarked with great cheerfulness; but no inducement could prevail on a single negro to accompany me.”’ Park’s intentions with respect to this second journey were stated to government before his departure from England. He said that ‘he would proceed up the Gambia, cross the country to the Niger, and travel down that river to its termination.’ Sailing up the Gambia as far as Kayee, Park and his party commenced their land journey from that point on the 27th of April, in high spirits, and amply provided with all necessaries. ‘At Kayee he was able, for the first time, to perfect his preparations for the route, by attaching a few natives to his party. Isaaco, a Mandingo priest and merchant, and one well inured to long inland journeys, engaged himself to act as a guide to the expedition, and to give it the assistance of several negroes, his own personal attendants.’ Unfortunately it was the worst season of the year for traveling, and the journey was one of continued toil and sickness. Before the 19th of August more than three-fourths of the party had died, or been left behind to die. On that day, after leaving the place called Toniba, ‘coming,’ says Park, ‘to the brow of a hill, I once more saw the Niger rolling its immense stream along the plain!’ This was a pleasant sight for Park’s companions. Several more of them, however, died before Sego, the capital of Bambarra, was reached. Here, being kindly received by Mansong, the king of the Bambaraas, Park hoped to be able to obtain a vessel in which he might navigate the Niger to its termination. He waited for several weeks at Sansanding, a town a little below Sego, using all his endeavors to obtain from Mansong a canoe sufficient for his purpose. ‘After much labor, he did get a vessel of the desired kind fitted up, and named it his Britanic majesty’s schooner the Joliba. At Sansanding, on the 28th of October, Mr. Anderson underwent the fate of so many of his companions, and regarding his death Park observes—​“No event that took place during the journey ever threw the smallest gloom over my mind till I laid Mr. Anderson in the grave. I then felt myself as if left a second time lonely and friendless amidst the wilds of Africa.”

‘At this point the authentic account of Mungo Park’s second journey ends. Isaaco’s engagement here terminated, and the papers given to him by the traveler, and carried back to the coast, constitute the only records of the expedition which came from Park’s own pen. These papers were accompanied by several letters, the most interesting of which is one (dated Sansanding, November 17) addressed to Lord Camden. In this letter Park says—​“I am sorry to say, that of forty-four Europeans who left the Gambia in perfect health, five only are at present alive; namely, three soldiers (one deranged in his mind), Lieutenant Martyn, and myself. From this account I am afraid that your lordship will be apt to consider matters as in a very hopeless state; but I assure you I am far from despairing. With the assistance of one of the soldiers, I have changed a large canoe into a tolerably good schooner, on board of which I this day hoisted the British flag, and shall set sail to the east, with a fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger, or perish in the attempt. I have heard nothing that I can depend on respecting the remote course of this mighty stream, but I am more and more inclined to think that it can end nowhere but in the sea. My dear friend Mr. Anderson, and likewise Mr. Scott, are both dead; but though all the Europeans who are with me should die, and though I myself were half dead, I would still persevere, and if I could not succeed in the object of my journey, I would at last die on the Niger.”’

These were the last words which Park sent to Europe; the next intelligence was a vague rumor of his death. For five years, however, no authentic information of the event was received; but from the exertions of Isaaco, Park’s former guide, who was induced in 1810 to make a journey with a view to ascertain the traveler’s fate, it appeared that his prophetic words had been accomplished, and that he had ‘died on the Niger.’ Isaaco obtained the particulars from Amadi Fatouma, who acted as guide to the party onward from Sansanding. They were as follows:—​Passing Jeuné and Timbuctoo in safety, the little schooner, with Park and his surviving companions (eight in number) on board, reached Yaour, in the kingdom of Houssa. Not willing to delay his progress by landing, Park sent Amadi Fatouma, whose engagement as guide terminated here, on shore with presents to the king. These presents being treacherously appropriated by the inferior chief to whom Amadi delivered them, the king of Houssa, thinking his dignity insulted, sent an army after the schooner. The army came upon the schooner at a part of the river called Boussa. ‘There is before Boussa a rock extending across the river, with only one opening in it, in the form of a door, for the water to pass through. The king’s men took possession of the top of this rock, until Park came up to it and attempted to pass. The natives attacked him and his friends with lances, pikes, arrows, and other missiles. Park defended himself vigorously for a long time; but at last, after throwing everything in the canoe overboard, being overpowered by numbers, and seeing no chance of getting the canoe past, he took hold of one of the white men and jumped into the river; Martyn did the same; and the whole were drowned in their attempt to escape by swimming. One black remained in the canoe, the other two being killed, and he cried for mercy. The canoe fell into the hands of the natives. Amadi Fatouma, on being freed from his irons three months afterwards, ascertained these facts from the native who had survived the catastrophe.’

From 1805 to 1822, various attempts were made to penetrate after Park into the heart of Nigritia. In 1809 Roentger, a German, proceeded from Morocco with a view to cross the Great Desert, but he seems to have been murdered by his guides. Shortly after, some information was obtained from two Americans, Adams and Riley, who were wrecked off the coast of the Great Desert, and carried into the interior by the Arabs. Adams alleged that he had been carried as far as Timbuctoo, but little credit was attached to his statement. The famous Burckhardt was to attempt a journey into the interior from Egypt, but died before carrying his resolution into effect. In 1816 the British government, possessed with the idea, which we have seen that Park himself came latterly to entertain, that the Congo was the outlet of the Niger, fitted out two expeditions, one of which, under Captain Tuckey, was to ascend the Congo in vessels; the other, under Major Peddie, was to penetrate the interior by Park’s route, and, embarking on the Niger, to sail down it so as to meet Captain Tuckey, which would of course happen if the Niger and Congo were identical. Both parties were brought to a halt—​the expedition up the Congo by cataracts, which prevented further navigation, and the land expedition by the hostility of the natives; and the only result of consequence was to explode the hypothesis that the Niger and the Congo were the same.

About the year 1819 attention was drawn to the possibility of penetrating into Central Africa by a route not yet tried—​namely, from Tripoli through the Great Desert; and as the bashaw of Tripoli, whose influence extended far into the interior, was understood to be willing to cultivate the good will of the British, it was resolved to make the attempt under his auspices. Accordingly, in 1819, Mr. Ritchie and Lieutenant Lyon began the journey from Tripoli across the Desert. They reached Mourzouk in Fezzan; but Mr. Ritchie dying there of bilious fever, the expedition was abandoned. In April 1822, however, three new adventurers, Major Denham, Captain Clapperton, and Dr. Oudney, with several companions, followed the same route. ‘A caravan, belonging to a great native merchant named Boo Khaloom, was on the point of starting for Soudan on the Niger, and with this the band of travelers were to cross the Desert in company.

‘Boo Khaloom, a Moor or Arab of remarkable abilities, and of a liberal and humane disposition, had a retinue on the journey of above two hundred Arabs, and with this company performed their dreary marches, under a burning sun, across the sands of the interior. The most extraordinary sight on this route was the number of skeletons strewed on the ground, the wrecks of former caravans. Sometimes sixty or seventy lay in one spot, and of these some lay entwined in one another’s arms, as they had perished! For fourteen days, hills of sand, and plains of sand, constituted the only objects in sight of travelers. At the end of that time they again beheld symptoms of herbage, being now on the northern borders of the kingdom of Bornou. Shortly afterwards, on reaching a town called Lari, the British travelers beheld a sight which made up for all they had undergone. This was the great inland sea of Africa, Lake Tchad, the existence of which had been so often canvassed, and which now lay before them “glowing with the golden rays of the sun.”

‘Lake Tchad, one of the most interesting points of Central African scenery, is a vast triangular sheet of water, about one hundred and eighty miles long from east to west, and above one hundred miles in extent at its greatest breadth. It lies between 14 and 17 degrees of north latitude, and 12 and 15 degrees of east longitude. Two large streams flow into it—​the one called the Yeou, from the west, and the other the Shary or Tshary, from the south. Lake Tchad is situated about five hundred miles to the east of the Niger, and the country lying between them bears the general name of the Soudan, though particular appellations are given to provinces, such as Houssa, and others. Bornou is the district lying immediately to the west of the lake. Major Denham spent a considerable time here. He found the kingdom of Bornou in a very peculiar position as to government. The people are negroes, and had once been subjugated by the Foulahs or Fellatahs—​a bold race, of uncertain descent, and the conquerors and oppressors of many kingdoms in the interior. But a Bornouese negro, of humble birth and powerful talents, had aroused his countrymen and driven out the Fellatahs. This individual was found by Major Denham to be in possession of the whole power of Bornou, though, out of respect to the prejudices of his people, the old Fellatah prince was still permitted to hold a nominal throne, and the empty title of sultan. The real ruler contented himself with the title of sheikh. He is described by Denham as being extremely intelligent, and as holding the reins of power with great firmness and sagacity. The Bornouese are disciples of Mohammed, and may be called well civilized in comparison with other inland nations. Their country supplies them abundantly with food, and they carry on manufactures to a considerable extent in cotton.

‘Major Denham found an opportunity of traveling round nearly the whole of Lake Tchad, and thus satisfied himself that the waters of the Niger did not enter this inland pool. After eighteen months’ stay in Bornou, Denham was joined by Captain Clapperton who had separated from him in order to explore the country of Soudan—​an excursion on which Dr. Oudeney unfortunately perished from fatigue, and the diseases incidental to the climate. Clapperton was well received at Soccatoo, the Capital of Houssa, and the seat of Bello, the great Soudanite monarch, and the head of the Fellatah nation. Like the sheikh of Bornou, Sultan Bello was found to be an able and intelligent man.

‘Soccatoo, the capital of Houssa, situated on a tributary of the Niger, and distant four days’ journey from that river, is one of the largest cities of the interior, containing, to appearance, above forty thousand inhabitants. The city is laid out in regular streets, and is surrounded, like most African towns, with clay walls. The houses are well-built cottages, generally of clay; and the mosques, as well as parts of the sultan’s palace, are ornamented with painted wooden pillars, in a very pretty style of architecture.

‘Upon the whole, the two countries of Houssa and Bornou must be regarded as far above any kingdoms of the African interior yet visited by Europeans in point of power and civilization. The Fellatah sultan, Bello, was extremely anxious that an English consul should be sent to Soccatoo, and that a trade should be opened up with the English. Before the travelers left either Houssa or Bornou, however, they found the rulers of these places to cool in their desire for British intercourse. This arose, without doubt, from the intrigues of the Arabs, who were afraid that the traffic through the Desert from the Mediterranean might be superseded by the commerce of the British from the Atlantic or western coast. The Arabs, therefore, artfully placed before the minds of the African princes the consequences which had resulted to India and other countries from a connexion with Britain.’

Having spent in all about three years in the interior of Africa, Denham and Clapperton returned to Tripoli, which they reached on the 26th of January 1825. ‘The safe return of two principal members of this expedition, and the interesting nature of the observations made by them, was cheering and encouraging to the British authorities and to all who took an interest in African Discovery. But the question of the Niger’s outlet, through which alone it was obvious commercial intercourse could be securely and effectually established with the interior, remained yet in doubt, though the late travelers were fully convinced that the river flowed into the Atlantic somewhere in the Gulf of Guinea. Ere he had rested many months at home, Clapperton, one of the bravest of the many brave men who had risked their lives on the same dangerous adventure, was again on his way to Africa at the head of an exploratory party. His companions were Dr. Morrison and Captain Pearce, besides a faithful servant of Clapperton, Richard Lander. It was resolved on this occasion to enter the interior from Badagry, a district on the northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea, from which Clapperton believed the Niger might be soonest reached.’

In the course of their arduous journey all of the party died except Clapperton and his servant Lander. They persevered, nevertheless, passing through many populous negro towns situated between the coast and the Niger. The whole of this tract of country they found very thickly peopled; and the natives appeared, at a distance from the coast, to be of superior disposition and character. In April 1826 they reached Boussa on the Niger, the place where Park had been killed; they saw the spot where the traveler had met his death, and heard that some relics of him were still preserved, but could not obtain a right of them. After staying some time at Boussa, Clapperton crossed the Niger, and paid another visit to the territories of his former acquaintance, Sultan Bello, who, however, seemed less friendly to him than on the previous occasion, apparently suspecting the motives which actuated the British in their efforts to procure information respecting a part of the world so remote from their own. Wearied out by his toils, Clapperton became ill at Soccatoo, and died there on the 13th of April 1827, in the arms of Richard Lander, who, with great difficulty, made his way alone back to the coast, which he reached in November. He immediately set out for England, carrying Captain Clapperton’s papers with him, and a journal of his own proceedings subsequent to Clapperton’s death.

‘Meanwhile the British government were making another attempt from the Mediterranean. About the time that Clapperton set out on his second journey, Major Laing, an able officer, who had already traveled on the African coasts, entered the Desert by way of Tripoli, under the protection of a personage who had resided twenty-two years at Timbuctoo. When in the middle of the Desert, the party was attacked by a band of wild Tuaricks, and Major Laing was left for dead, with twenty-four dreadful wounds on his person. He recovered, however, by the care of his surviving companions, although numerous portions of bone had to be extracted from his head and temples! When able to do so, he pursued his journey, and on the 18th of August reached the famous city of Timbuctoo. Several letters were received from him, dated at this place, which he described as having disappointed him in point of extent, being only about four miles in circuit, but that he had found its records copious and interesting. Major Laing never had the opportunity, unhappily, of making these valuable discoveries known, being murdered, three days after leaving Timbuctoo, by a wretch who had undertaken to guide him to the mouth of the Senegal, or its neighborhood. What became of the ill-fated traveler’s papers is not known.

‘The next light thrown upon African geography came from a source somewhat different from those described. René Cailliè, a Frenchman of humble origin, assuming the character of a Mohammedan on a pilgrimage to Mecca, joined, on the 19th of April 1827, a small native caravan, traveling from the river Nunez to the interior. He soon after reached the Joliba (the name which the Niger bears as far down as Timbuctoo), but was detained by illness for five months at a place called Timé. On his recovery, he passed onwards to Jenné on the Niger, a city described by him as containing eight thousand or ten thousand inhabitants, and as being a place of considerable traffic. At Jenné, he embarked in a loose native vessel of sixty tons burden, and sailed with a party of merchants through Lake Dibbie, and down the Niger, until, in April 1828, the vessel stopped at Cabra, the port of Timbuctoo. The inhabitants of Cabra were about twelve hundred in number, and were solely occupied as porters, either in unloading goods, or in conveying them on the backs of asses to Timbuctoo. That city itself lies about ten miles from the Niger, and is a place of some ten thousand or twelve thousand inhabitants. It is chiefly built of bricks, and is supported entirely by commerce. The population are partly negroes and partly Moors; but the king is a negro, and the government is solely in the hands of that class. On the other hand, though all the people engage more or less in trade, the Moors are the principal merchants. The great article of traffic is salt, which is brought from the mines in the neighboring Desert of Sahara, and is disseminated from Timbuctoo over the whole of Central Africa.

‘After leaving Timbuctoo, Cailliè made his way across the Desert to Tangier, where he arrived in August 1828, and whence he was forwarded by the French consul to Europe. Upon the whole, however, M. Caillé has contributed little to the removal of those glaring blanks which have so long defaced the map of Africa.

‘Not so the next adventurer to whom we have to allude. This was Richard Lander, the faithful follower of Clapperton. Lander made an offer of his services to government for the investigation of the course and termination of the Niger. The offer was accepted; and Lander embarked at Portsmouth on the 9th of January 1830, accompanied by his younger brother John, who shared in all the toils and honors of the expedition. The Landers arrived on the 19th of March at Badagry, and at the end of the month started on the same route pursued by Clapperton in his journey to the Niger. Paskoe, the old guide, was again taken into service by the Landers. After an interesting journey through the populous cities of Yarriba, the travelers arrived at Boussa on the Niger on the 17th of June. The king of Boussa welcomed them with great cordiality. Though gentle and hospitable, this prince was a mere ignorant savage in comparison of the kings of Houssa and Bornou. At Boussa, notwithstanding that aversion always evinced by the natives to speak about Park, the Landers found an old nautical publication belonging to that traveler, with a loose paper or two between the sheets—​one of them an invitation card to dinner. The man who possessed this book regarded it as his household god—​every written paper being of magical import in the eyes of the natives. The tobe, or surtout-dress, of rich crimson damask, which Park had worn, was also recovered at Boussa by the Landers; but no distinct account was got of the mode in which these articles came into the hands of their owners.’

After making all inquiries, so as to rescue any relics of Park, and even ascending to Yaourie, a city and province a few days’ journey farther up the Niger for that purpose, obtaining for their trouble a double-barreled gun which had belonged to the traveler, the Landers endeavored to procure a canoe, that they might sail down the river, and solve the great problem of its course and termination. They were assisted in the kindest manner by the king of Boussa, who sent messengers down the Niger to a town called Rabba, in order to pave the way for the secure passage of the travelers. On the 20th of September, the travelers embarked in a canoe provided for them on the Niger.

‘On the 7th of October they arrived opposite Rabba, having passed a number of islands and towns on the river, which was always a magnificent stream, but varying considerably in width. Rabba is a large market town, governed by a relative of Sultan Bello. The ruler of Rabba being dissatisfied with the presents made to him, the travelers were reluctantly forced to give him Park’s tobe, and they subsequently had the misfortune to lose his gun. Near Rabba, the river took a wide sweep to the eastward, but it again turned to the south. Egga, another famous market town on the river, and Kacunda, were afterwards passed, and the mouths of two large tributaries, the Coodoovia and the Tchadda, were also seen. Various other towns were passed in succession, the largest of which were Bocqua and Attah. The Landers had now arrived at a region where signs of European intercourse were seen, and where the natives had been tainted by the demoralising consequences of the slave commerce. At a place called Kirree the travelers suffered a heavy misfortune. They were attacked by a number of canoes, seized, and their property taken from them. Richard’s journal, amongst other articles, was lost in the river, though the notes of his brother were happily preserved. The travelers expected nothing but death at this time themselves; but their lives were saved, that they might be carried down the river to Eboe Town where the king of the Eboe poople resided, and by whose subjects the attack had been made.

On their way to Eboe Town, they passed a large lake on the river, which afterwards divided itself into three broad streams, flowing at different inclinations to the south-west. From this, and previous branchings of the stream, the Landers felt convinced that they were close by the termination of the Niger in the Gulf of Guinea; and their anxiety to continue their route was proportionable to their pleasure at the near accomplishment of their task. Obie, the Eboe king, resolved to detain them, however, till a ransom was got up from the English; but King Boy, a monarch residing farther down the river, and who was then in Eboe Town, became bound for the ransom of the Landers, and carried them down (what proved to be the stream commonly called the Nun River) to Brass Town, his father’s capital. King Boy subsequently went down to the mouth of the river with Richard Lander, leaving John at Brass Town. An English merchantman was lying in the Nun, and, with hope in his heart, Richard Lander went on board of her with Boy, and explained his situation to the commander, Captain Lake, expecting to find a country’s sympathy and aid. The wretch refused to expend a penny on their ransom, though, if he had possessed a spark of intelligence, he might have been assured that the British government would gladly have paid, ten times over, any outlay made in such circumstances. Richard Lander with difficulty prevailed on Boy to go and bring his brother John to the brig, by which time the traveler hoped Lake would relent. The brutal captain, however, did not relent; and when John Lander came to the brig, he and his brother, much against their will, were forced to leave the river without satisfying Boy, who had generously taken the risk of recovering their ransom. It is a consolation to think that the British government ultimately remunerated Boy beyond his expectations. In Captain Lake’s vessel, meantime, the Landers, after much danger, crossed the bar of the river Nun, and entered the open sea in the Bight of Benin, Gulf of Guinea, with the deep satisfaction on their minds of having thus attained the glory of discovering the termination of the Niger! On the 1st of December they were put ashore at Fernando Po, where they experienced the warmest reception from the British residents. Shortly after, they found a passage homewards, and reached Britain on the 9th of June 1831, after an absence of a year and a half.

‘The solution of the great African mystery by the Landers was justly felt by their countrymen as a national triumph. But the matter, when explained, looked so simple, as in the case of Columbus with the egg, that men wondered how they could have been so long in the dark with respect to it. The splitting of the Niger into numerous branches near its close, some of them a hundred miles distant from others, was the real cause of all the difficulty. Like the Nile, the Niger has a large delta (so called from the shape of the Greek letter Δ delta), and each of its branches bore the look of independent streams. The delta of the Niger is partly inhabited, but is extremely marshy.’

Since the completion of Park’s great discovery by the Landers, two expeditions have been fitted out for the navigation of the Niger from its mouth into the interior. At first there was a general belief that now a communication had been opened up with Central Africa, and that, by means of the Niger, an easy and speedy intercourse could be held with the negro tribes living south of the Great Desert. Accordingly, two steamers, one of them entirely iron, were fitted out in 1832, at the expense of some individuals in Liverpool anxious to commence the new trade. They arrived at the Delta of the Niger in the month of October, accompanied by a sailing-vessel laden with articles for traffic. Many of the crew were carried off by the pestilential influence of the climate; and the steamers did not ascend very far. The Tchadda, a tributary of the Niger, was explored for about a hundred miles by one of them; but its banks were not found to present much opportunity for commerce, and the steamer returned to the Niger. Richard Lander, who had given his services to the expedition, was mortally wounded in a scuffle with the natives, while ascending the river in a boat with a supply of kowries which he had returned to the sea-coast to procure. He died thirteen days after, on the 2d of February 1834; and in July, the vessels left the Niger on their voyage home, the crew of the one having been reduced from twenty-nine to five and that of the other from nineteen to four. In a commercial point of view, likewise, the expedition was a failure, the only article of value procured from the natives being ivory, and that in too small a quantity to pay the expenses of the enterprise.

A second expedition, consisting of three iron steamers commissioned by government, set sail for the Niger in May 1841. The object of this expedition was to open up such an intercourse with the native princes on the banks of the Niger as might serve to assist in suppressing the African slave trade, and to plant the seeds of civilization in the centre of the continent. Besides being amply manned and furnished, the vessels carried with them all that was necessary for establishing a little colony or model farm on the hanks of the Niger, such a scheme seeming best fitted for inoculating the African population with the habits which it was desired to naturalize among them. The entire number of individuals connected with the expedition was 301, of whom 145 were Europeans, and 156 persons of color. The vessels commenced the ascent of the Niger on the 20th of August; passed Aboh, the capital of the Eboe country, where the commissioners negotiated with Obie, the king or chief of the district, regarding the suppression of the slave trade. Ninety-five miles farther up they came to Iddah, the capital of the king of Eggarah, with whom a treaty was also concluded. On the 10th of September the confluence of the Niger and the Tchadda was reached; and here it was determined to establish the model farm. Accordingly, the part of the crews and cargoes intended for the purpose was disembarked.

Meanwhile sickness had become so prevalent, and the number of deaths so great, that two of the steamers were obliged to descend the river with the invalids, in order to give them the chance of recovery on the coast. The remaining steamer, the Albert, advanced as far as Egga, about 350 miles from the sea. Farther than this, however, the increasing illness of the crew prevented it from proceeding; and accordingly, having explained to the chief of the place the object of their visit, the commander turned back on the 5th of October, and descended the river, there being hardly hands sufficient left to manage the vessel. The Albert reached the sea on the 16th of October, the other two steamers having reached it on the end of the previous month. The expedition had been most disastrous. Of the 145 white men, only fifteen escaped the river fever; while of the 156 blacks, only eleven were attacked. The list of deaths showed a total of fifty-three. The news of these unfortunate results having reached England, orders were sent out in the summer of 1842 to abandon the enterprise, and remove the laborers from the model farm; which was accordingly done.

By way of summing up the information which we have yet been able, by all our researches and expeditions, to obtain respecting Soudan or Nigritia, we may state an opinion which seems to be gaining ground. It is maintained by some that there is evidence that great changes have occurred in Central Africa within the last few centuries; that, in fact, a general movement towards civilization is discernible in the heart of this vast and forbidding continent—​a movement not originated by European contact, but born among the Africans themselves. There is evidence, it is said, that a few centuries ago the inhabitants of Nigritia were very far inferior in promise and culture to what they are at present; that the commercial spirit and manufacturing ingenuity which travelers report to exist among the negro tribes are of recent growth. The great agents in this change in the condition of Central Africa are said to be the Foulahs—​a people of doubtful origin, but possibly Asiatic. These Foulahs are represented as having acted as conquerors of the original negro tribes—​triumphing by virtue of their superior temperament and organization, and incorporating the petty states of the old negro chiefs into large kingdoms; helping also to civilize the natives by introducing among them the ideas of Mohammedanism, which, however inferior and pernicious in themselves, were yet an advance upon the original negro beliefs.

‘Throughout the whole extent of Nigritia or Negroland,’ says a writer who advocates the opinion we have just stated, ‘the Foulahs undoubtedly occupy preëminence. They are found spread over a geographic region of 28 to 30 degrees of longitude (1500 miles), and 7 to 10 degrees in latitude, or 500 miles. They extend from the Atlantic Ocean, from the mouth of the Senegal and Senegambia on the west, to the kingdoms of Bornou and Mandara on the east; from the Desert of Sahara on the north, to the mountains of Guinea or Kong on the south. This wide superficies contains more than 700,000 square miles, which is equal to the fourth part of Europe, and a tenth part of the immense continent of Africa.’

In some parts of this vast extent of territory the Foulahs are politically supreme, in others they are feudal dependents of the original chiefs; but everywhere they seem to be the growing power. ‘The Foulahs,’ says Mr. Hodgson, ‘are not negroes. They differ essentially from the negro race in all the characteristics which are marked by physical anthropology. They may be said to occupy the intermediate space betwixt the Arab and the negro. All travelers concur in representing them as a distinct race in moral as in physical traits. To their color, the various terms of bronze, copper, reddish, and sometimes white, has been applied. They concur also in the report that the Foulahs of every region represent themselves to be white men, and proudly assert their superiority to the black tribes among whom they live.… The Foulahs are rigid Mohammedans, and, according to Mollien the French traveler’s report, they are animated by a strong zeal for proselytism. They are the missionaries of Islam among the Pagan negro tribes. Where they have conquered, they have forced the adoption of the Koran by the sword; and whilst pursuing quietly their pastoral occupation, they become schoolmasters (maalims), and thus propagate the doctrines and precepts of Islam. Wherever the Foulah has wandered, the Pagan idolatry of the negro has been overthrown; the barbarous Fetish and greegree have been abandoned; anthropophagy and cannibalism have been suppressed.… Thus the Foulahs are now exercising a powerful influence upon the moral and social condition of Central Africa. I do not doubt that they are destined to be the great instrument in the future civilization of Africa, and the consequent suppression of the external Atlantic slave trade.… They will, probably, erect one vast empire in the Soudan, and the influence which that power may exert in the great question of African civilization, gives them no ordinary importance.’ If this opinion be true, what might not be the result if the Foulahs, at present barbarians and Mohammedans, themselves were overpowered by the higher and purer ideas which have raised Europe to its present supremacy over the earth? Meanwhile, it is consoling to think that, even in Central Africa, the human race has been moving onward.

Northern Africa and the Great Desert.—​Respecting that vast section of the African continent which extends from the Mediterranean to Nigritia, it appears that we are only beginning to obtain a correct description. Various officers of the French army at present engaged in the arduous enterprise of establishing the colony of Algeria, have occupied themselves in collecting information regarding the numerous tribes overspreading Northern Africa; and it would seem, from their accounts, that the ideas we have been accustomed to entertain concerning these regions are far from correct.

According to the recent accounts, Northern Africa, between the Mediterranean and Nigritia, consists of two portions—​the Tell, or that strip of land varying from 50 to 120 miles in breadth, which lies along the sea; and the Sahara, or, as it has commonly been called, the Great Desert. The following remarks respecting the Tell are from the work of Mr. Hodgson previously quoted:—​‘On the Mediterranean coast of Africa, there are in progress at this moment great political and commercial revolutions. There exists in that region a sanguinary and unceasing conflict of Christianity with Mohammedanism, of civilization with semi-barbarism. France having conquered the extensive territory of Algeria, is now pushing forward her victorious legions into the more important and more populous empire of Morocco. The result of a conflict between undisciplined hordes and the science of European warfare cannot be doubtful. But there are elements in this contest which perhaps have not been well understood. It is not with the Arab populations of those countries with which France has chiefly to contend. That, indeed, is the more intellectual but smaller portion of the people of Algeria and Morocco. The more ferocious and larger portion of that population consists of the aboriginal Berbers, the ancient Numidians, and Mauritanians. The Romans term this race genus insuperabile bello—​“unconquerable in war.” It remains to be determined if they have lost that proud appellation.’

‘To form a correct conception of the Sahara,’ says a writer in the Edinburgh Review (No. 169), condensing the information contained in some of the recent French publications on the subject, ‘our readers must dismiss from their minds all loose and fantastic conceptions which have been attached, from time immemorial, to the interior of Northern Africa. Instead of a torrid region, where boundless steppes of burning sand are abandoned to the roving horsemen of the Desert, and to beasts of prey, and where the last vestiges of Moorish civilization expire long before the traveler arrives at Negroland and the savage communities of the interior, the Sahara is now ascertained to consist of a vast archipelago of oases; each of them peopled by a tribe of the Moorish race or its offsets, more civilized, and more capable of receiving the lessons of civilization, than the houseless Arabs of the Tell (the mountainous tract lying between the Great Desert and the sea); cultivating the date-tree with application and ingenuity, inhabiting walled towns, living under a regular government, for the most part of a popular origin; carrying to some perfection certain branches of native manufactures, and keeping up an extensive system of commercial intercourse with the northern and central parts of the African continent, and from Mogador to Mecca, by the enterprise and activity of their caravans. Each of the oases of the Sahara, which are divided from one another by sandy tracts, bearing shrubs and plants fit only for the nourishment of cattle, presents an animated group of towns and villages. Every village is encircled by a profusion of fruit-bearing trees. The palm is the monarch of their orchards, as much by the grace of its form, as by the value of its productions; and the pomegranate, the fig-tree, and the apricot cluster around its lofty stem. The lions and other beasts of prey with which poetry has peopled the African wilds, are to be met with only in the mountains of the Tell, never in the plains of the Sahara. The robber tribes of the Tuaricks frequent the southern frontier of the Sahara, and the last tracts of habitable land which intervene between these oases and the real Desert; but in the Sahara itself, communications, carried on after the fashion of the country, are regular and secure. War is, indeed, of frequent occurrence between the neighboring tribes, either for the possession of disputed territories, or the revenge of supposed injuries; but all that is yet known of these singular communities shows them to be living in a completely constituted state of society, eminently adapted to the peculiar part of the globe which they inhabit, governed by the strong traditions of a primitive people, and fulfilling with energy and intelligence the strange vocations of their life.’

‘Almost all the Sahara tribes,’ says M. Carette, a French captain of engineers, who has contributed much to clear up our notions of this portion of Africa, ‘are accustomed to a system of annual peregrination, which must have existed from time immemorial, inasmuch as it is based upon the nature of the climate and the produce, and the primary wants of their existence. This general movement is commonly performed in the following manner:—​During the winter and spring the tribes are collected in the waste tracts of the Sahara, which, at this season of the year, supply water and fresh vegetation, but they never remain more than three or four days on any one spot; and when the pasture is exhausted, they strike their tents, and go to establish themselves elsewhere. Towards the end of the spring they pass through the towns of the Sahara, where their merchandise is deposited. They load their camels with dates and woollen stuffs, and then turn their steps towards the north, taking with them their whole wandering city—​women, dogs, herds, and tents—​for it is at this season that the springs begin to dry and the plants to wither on the Sahara, at the same time that the corn is ripe in the Tell. There they arrive at the moment of the harvest, when corn is abundant and cheap, and thus they take a double advantage of the season, by abandoning the waste as it becomes arid, and seeking their fresh stock of provisions in the north, when the markets are overstocked with grain. The summer they pass in this country, in commercial activity, exchanging their dates and woollen manufactured goods for corn, raw wool, sheep, and butter; whilst their herds are allowed to browse freely upon the lands, which lie fallow after the gathering in of the harvest. The signal for the return homewards is given at the end of the summer; the camels are reloaded, the tents again struck, and the wandering city once more marches forth, as it came, in short day’s journeys towards the south. The Sahara is regained about the middle of October, the period when the dates are ripe. A month is passed in gathering and storing this fruit; another is devoted to the exchange of the wheat, and barley, and raw wool, for the year’s dates and the woollen stuffs—​the produce of the yearly labor of the women. When all this business is concluded, and the merchandise stored away, the tribes quit the towns, and lead their flocks and herds from pasture-land to pasture-land among the waste tracts of the Sahara, until the following summer calls for a renewal of the same journey, the same system of trade.

‘The Sahara,’ continues M. Carette, ‘is that part of Algeria which is most civilized and most capable of receiving civilization. It is there that habits of precision are most generally diffused, and there that we find the greatest amount of intelligence, activity, and social disposition.’ The only portion of the Sahara which answers to our ideas of an uninterrupted waste of sand, seems to be the most southern belt of it, which adjoins Nigritia, and which is infested by a roving race called the Tuaricks, who conduct a commercial intercourse, especially in slaves, between the negro countries and the oases of the more northern parts of the Sahara. ‘These Tuaricks,’ says M. Carette, ‘pretend to be of Turkish descent, and affect to treat the Arabs with disdain. They are tall, strong, of slender make and of fair complexion, with the exception of a few of mixed blood. They wear a head-dress, one of the ends of which covers the whole face except the eyes; and almost all, whether rich or poor, have their feet bare, because, according to their own account, they never go on foot.’ The southern Tuaricks keep the towns of the Soudan in a constant state of blockade, hunting down the negroes in their neighborhood, and carrying them off for sale.

Conclusion. From the general survey which we have taken of Africa, and of the progress of African discovery, it appears that, while there is scarcely a point in its vast circuit where Europeans have not attempted to settle, scarcely any of the settlements have flourished. For the purpose of trade, such establishments will no doubt be maintained at a vast sacrifice of life—​the consequence of the pestilential effects of the climate on European constitutions; but it is not likely that any settlements of a permanent description will be effected except at the southern and northern extremities of the continent. Cape Colony, as yet, is the most prosperous, indeed the only settlement, worthy of the name, in Africa: whether the French will be able to make anything of Algeria, remains yet to be seen. As for the centre of the continent, it seems quite hopeless to suppose that Europeans can ever operate there directly. The utmost that can be anticipated is, that they shall be able to act upon the continent through native agents. By establishing a commerce with Central Africa, they may stimulate whatever tendencies to civilization exist among the negro races; they may create an activity through the continent resembling that caused by the slave traffic, but everyway nobler and more beneficial. Whatever seeds of improvement there are among the natives, whether negroes, Foulahs, or Arabs, may be developed by this means, and made to fructify. In this respect, nothing could be more gratifying than to know that the opinion explained in a former part of this article with regard to Central Africa is well-founded, and that an actual movement is in progress among the natives towards a more advanced stage of humanity.

SAMUEL HEARNE.

Samuel Hearne was born in London, in 1745, and, at the age of eleven, embarked on board a vessel under the command of Captain (afterwards Lord) Hood; with whom he was engaged in many successful victories against the French, and acquired the right to a considerable share of prize-money, which he requested might be transmitted to his mother, who ‘would know better than himself how to dispose of it.’ At the termination of the war, seeing little chance of his advancement in the king’s navy, he quitted it, and entered the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who soon found him to be a most intelligent and enterprising auxiliary. In 1768 he made a voyage to the head of the bay, for the purpose of improving the cod fishery in that part; and, at the same time, made a very useful survey of the adjoining coasts. In the following year, he was appointed to head an expedition, the principal objects of which were to ascertain the situation of the Copper Mine River, and the possibility of a north-west passage. Accordingly, on the 6th of November, 1769, he set out, accompanied by four attendants; when after having crossed the Seal River, and walked some time over the barren grounds beyond it, the depth of the snow and scarcity of his provisions compelled him to return, having proceeded no farther than the sixty-fourth degree of latitude.

Undiscouraged by this failure, he immediately made arrangements for a second expedition; and, in February, 1770, resumed the route he had before taken, advancing slowly northward and westward in the pursuit of his object; determined, rather than leave it unattained, to perish by the famine to which he was constantly exposed. ‘Often,’ he says, ‘I fasted whole days and nights, twice upwards of three days, and once near seven days; during which I tasted not a mouthful of any thing, except a few cranberries, water, scraps of old leather, and burnt bones.’ In July, while between the sixty-third and sixty-fourth degrees of latitude, he took up his winter quarters among a tribe of Indians, with whom he remained till about the 11th of August, when a gust of wind blowing down and destroying his quadrant, he was compelled to return to Prince of Wales’ Fort, where he arrived on the 25th of November, with the loss of his gun and several of his most useful effects, which had been stolen from him by some of his attendants.

On the 7th of the following month, accompanied by an Indian chief, who pointed out a new route likely to lead to the discovery of the copper mine, he set out a third time, in the hope of ascertaining its situation. After determining the latitude of a place called Congecathawhachaga, he began, on the 15th of July, 1771 his survey of the Copper Mine River; in the course of which, he was more than once shocked at beholding the massacre of several parties of Esquimaux, by the Indians who accompanied him. After a journey on foot of nearly one thousand three hundred miles, he reached the mouth of the river, which, from the quantity of whalebone and seal-skins seen by him in the tents of the Esquimaux, he assumed must empty itself into the ocean; and that, consequently, he ‘had reached the northern shore of North America, and stood on the borders of the Hyperborean Sea.’ Mr. Barrow however, in his Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions, denies the conclusions of Hearne upon this point, and observes, ‘equally unsatisfactory is his statement as to the latitude of the Copper Mine River;’ which, instead of 71 deg. 54 min., he cites the authorities of Dalrymple and other geographers to prove, could only be about sixty-nine degrees.

On leaving the Copper Mine River, Hearne proceeded, in a state of great agony from the soreness of his feet, as far as Lake Athapusco, or the Slave Lake; from which, in February, 1772, he departed eastward, and, on the 30th of June, arrived at Prince of Wales’ Fort, after an absence of eighteen months, and having endured, in the latter part of his journey, the horrors of a famine, which destroyed several of his attendants, and nearly proved fatal to himself. On his return, he received the thanks of the Company and a handsome gratuity; and, in 1774, he established in the interior of the country, Cumberland Factory. In 1775, he became governor of the Prince of Wales’ Fort; seven years after which, it was attacked and taken by a French squadron, under the command of La Perouse, who seized all the papers he found, but restored the manuscript of Hearne, on condition of its being printed on his arrival in England. After rebuilding, and putting in a good state of defense, the fort, he continued to reside there till 1787; in which year he returned to England, and prepared his journal for the press, which appeared about three years after his death, which took place some time in 1792. The work, containing a preface, in which he refutes the charges of Dalrymple as to the correctness of his latitudes, has been translated into most of the European languages; and besides throwing a light upon one of the most important points in geography, shows its author to have been a man of extraordinary courage and perseverance, of profound observation, and of a benevolent and enlightened mind. He had also intended to publish copies of a vocabulary of the language of the northern Indians, which he had completed in sixteen folio pages; but the original was, unfortunately, lost by a friend to whom he had lent it.

JOHN LEWIS BURCKHARDT.

John Lewis Burckhardt, descended from an eminent family in Switzerland, was born at Lausanne, about the year 1785. He received the rudiments of his education at a school at Neufchatel, and completed his studies at the universities of Leipsic and Gottingen. At the latter, he recommended himself, by his talents and general good conduct, to the favorable notice of the celebrated Blumenbach, who gave him a letter of introduction to Sir Joseph Banks, upon whom Burckhardt called, on his arrival in London, in July, 1806. His acquaintance with Sir Joseph brought him in connexion with the other members of the African Association, and ended in his undertaking, under the patronage of the Society, to explore the interior of Africa. His offer was accepted in May, 1808, when he immediately set about preparing himself for his journey, by studying in London and at Cambridge, not only the Arabic language and oriental customs, but also astronomy, chemistry, mineralogy, medicine and surgery. In addition to this, he suffered his beard to grow, accustomed himself to wear the eastern dress, and in the intervals of his studies, exercised himself by long journies on foot, bare-headed, in the heat of the day, sleeping upon the ground, and living upon vegetables and water.

On the 25th of January, 1809, he received his final instructions, and on the 2d of March, he embarked at Cowes, for Malta, where he appeared in an oriental costume, and, by his judicious conduct, contrived to conceal his real character from several Swiss officers, whom he had previously known. Being unable to procure a vessel bound for Cyprus, he embarked in one sailing to the coast of Caramania. ‘I introduced myself,’ he says, ‘to the passengers, who were Tripolines, as an Indian Mohammedan merchant, who had been, from early years, in England, and was now on his way home; and I had the good fortune to make my story credible. During the course of our voyage, numerous questions were put to me relative to India, which I answered as well as I could; and when I was asked for a specimen of the Hindoo language, I answered them in the worst dialect of the Swiss-German.’ Having landed at Satalia, he made an excursion to Tarsus, where, finding a vessel bound for the coast of Syria, he embarked for that country, and entered it at the point where the Aasi, the ancient Orontis, falls into the sea. Here he joined a caravan proceeding to Aleppo, in his way whither he was much annoyed by the companions of his journey insisting that he was a Frank; and at Antakia, one going so far as to pull him by the beard, he resented the affront by giving the offender a blow on the face. On his arrival at Aleppo, he assumed the name of Ibrahim, and applied himself with unceasing assiduity to the study of the Arabic language, into which he made an attempt to translate Robinson Crusoe. In July, 1810, he started, by way of Palmyra, for Damascus; and, in the course of his journey, was twice attacked by banditti, and robbed of his watch and compass. He quitted Damascus in September, but returned to that city, after having visited the ruins of Balbec, Libanus, and Mount Hermon. He subsequently made an excursion into the Hauràn, the patrimony of Abraham, and, on the 1st of January, 1811, again entered Aleppo. From hence he accompanied an Arab sheikh into the desert towards the Euphrates, but the protection of his guide being insufficient, he was robbed of all his clothes, and compelled to return, without having accomplished any of the objects of his journey. ‘It was in this excursion to the desert,’ says Mr. Barker, the British consul at Aleppo, ‘that Burckhardt had so hard a struggle with an Arab lady, who took a fancy to the only garment which the delicacy or compassion of the men had left him.’ On the 14th of February, he finally quitted Aleppo, and once more returning to Damascus, made another journey from thence into the Hauràn, in the course of which, he discovered the ruins of a city unvisited by any other European, which he conjectured to be those of Petra, the capital of Arabia Petræa. The ruins are situate in the valley of Ghor, or Araba, the existence of which, he says, ‘appears to have been unknown to ancient as well as modern geographers.’ Speaking of Balka, he observes, ‘many ruined places and mountains in that district preserve the names of the Old Testament; and elucidate the topography of the province that fell to the share of the tribes of Gad and Reuben.’

After many hardships and dangers, our traveler reached Cairo, in Egypt, with the intention of joining a caravan, and traveling to Fezzan, in the north of Africa,—​the grand object of his mission. Whilst, however, the caravan was preparing, he undertook an expedition to Nubia, on which he set out, accompanied by a guide, on the 14th of February, 1813. They were mounted on dromedaries, and Burckhardt’s only incumbrances were a gun, a sabre, a pistol, and a woollen mantle, which served by day for a carpet, and for a covering during the night. The country through which he passed was in a state of great distraction, but he proceeded in safety as far as the Mahass territory, on reaching which, ‘he found himself,’ says Mr. St. John, in his life of our traveler, ‘in the midst of the worst description of savages. The governor, a ferocious black, furiously intoxicated, and surrounded by numerous followers in the same condition, received him in a hut. In the midst of their drunken mirth, they called for muskets, and amused themselves with firing in the hut, and Burckhardt every moment expected that a random ball would put an end to his travels.’ Having proceeded up the Nile almost as far as Dongola, he turned towards the north, and at Kolbe swam across the river, ‘holding by his camel’s tail with one hand, and urging on the beast with the other.’ He then visited Ybsambul, Mosmos, Derr, and Assouan, where he remained till the 2d of March, 1814; his whole expenditure during the time of his stay, for himself, his servant, dromedary, and ass, not exceeding one shilling and sixpence per day.

Having assumed the character of a poor trader and a Turk of Syria, he on the day above-mentioned, set out with a caravan, through the deserts of Nubia, to Berbery and Shendy, as far as Suakim, on the Red sea, whence he performed his pilgrimage to Mecca by way of Jidda. During this journey, in the course of which he had an opportunity of confirming many of the statements of Bruce, he endured a series of hardships and sufferings scarcely inferior to those of Park in Africa. Whilst mad with thirst in the burning desert, he beheld the mocking mirage; and if he escaped burial beneath the overwhelming sand, lifted like a wave by the tempestuous blast, it was doubtful whether he had not yet a more dangerous foe to meet in the plundering Arab. At Damer, he cried beads for sale, to procure provisions for his ass; at Jidda, his finances were so low, that he was compelled to sell his slave, and he had already thoughts of resorting to manual labor, when he fortunately obtained three thousand piastres (about £100) by giving a bill upon Cairo. Crocodile’s flesh occasionally formed part of his food, and the dangers of the desert he found no greater than the inconveniences. Though almost worn out with fatigue, ‘I was obliged,’ he says, ‘every day, to fetch and cut wood, to light a fire, to cook, to feed the ass, and finally to make coffee; a cup of which, presented to my companions, was the only means I possessed of keeping them in a tolerable good humor.’ In his way through the Nubian desert, he relates a singular custom of the Arab guides, for the purpose of extorting small presents from travelers. ‘They alight,’ he says, ‘at certain spots, and beg a present; if it be refused, they collect a heap of sand, and mould it into the form of a diminutive tomb, and then placing a stone at each of the extremities, they apprise the traveler that his tomb is made; meaning, that henceforth there will be no security for him in this rocky wilderness.

Our traveler remained at Mecca from the 9th of September until the 15th of January, 1815, during which time he accurately noted the manners and customs of the holy city, without his real character being discovered, though it had been previously suspected by the pasha of Tayef, who jocosely observed, ‘It is not the beard alone which proves a man to be a true Moslem.’ On the 28th, Burckhardt reached Medina, which he quitted on the 21st of April, in a state of great mental depression, and still suffering from the recent attack of an intermittent fever. To add to his dejection, he found, on his arrival at Yambo, the plague in its most virulent shape: and being unable to procure a boat, he was obliged to remain a witness of its horrors for more than a fortnight, during which time, he says, ‘the air, night and day, was filled with the piercing cries of those who had been bereaved of the objects of their affection.’ At length, on the 24th of June, he reached Cairo, where, after having recruited his health, he employed himself in drawing up an account of his travels. In the spring of 1816, he visited Mount Sinai; and, having returned to Cairo, was making preparations to commence his long-delayed journey to Fezzan, to explore the source of the Niger, when he was attacked with dysentery on the 14th, and died on the 15th of October, 1817. ‘I have closed,’ says Mr. St. John, ‘the lives of few travelers with more regret.’ His obsequies were performed after the Mohammedan custom, according to his own request to Mr. Salt, to whom he observed, a few moments previously to his death, ‘that as he had lived as a Mussulman in the east, the Turks would claim his body; and perhaps,’ said he, ‘you had better let them.’

Thus fell another victim in the cause of geographical discovery, which, in Mr. Burckhardt, may be said to have lost one of its most able and enterprising devotees. Patient, courageous, cautious, and intelligent, no fatigues dispirited, no obstacle disconcerted, and no dangers dismayed him. He conformed himself to the manners of the various countries through which he passed with admirable tact; and, with an apparent carelessness of what was passing around him, suffered nothing worth observation to escape his attention.

JAMES BRUCE.

James Bruce was born at Kinnaird, near Falkirk, in Stirlingshire, on the 14th of December, 1730, and, in 1738, was placed under the care of his uncle, a barrister in London, who sent him, in January, 1742, to school, at Harrow. Here he so successfully prosecuted his studies, that Dr. Cox, the head-master, said of him, in a letter to a friend, ‘When you write to Mr. Bruce’s father about his son, you cannot say too much; for he is as promising a young man as ever I had under my care; and, for his years, I never saw his fellow.’ From Harrow, he went, for a few months, to a private academy, where he renewed his classical studies, and acquired a knowledge of French, drawing, arithmetic and geometry. In the November of 1747, he entered the University of Edinburgh, with the intention of studying the law; which, at his father’s desire, he had determined on adopting as his profession. Disinclination, however, and ill-health, induced him, in the spring of 1748, to relinquish for ever the sedentary labors of a law student; and being threatened with consumption, he retired to Scotland, where he remained till 1753. In the July of that year, he went to London, with the intention of embarking for the East Indies, where he purposed settling as a free trader, under the patronage of the Company, to whom he had already prepared a petition. An attachment, however, frustrated this design; and, in February, 1754, he married a Miss Allan, daughter of a deceased wine-merchant; and, for a short time, held a share in the business. This he relinquished on the death of his wife, which happened in Paris, eight months after her marriage; and such was the bigotry of the catholics towards protestants, that he was compelled to inter her at midnight, and to steal a grave in the burying ground assigned to the English embassy.

After this event, he again turned his attention to literature, and acquired a knowledge of the Spanish and Portuguese tongues, as well as the art of drawing; all of which studies he pursued with a view to their utility in the future travels that he secretly contemplated. At the commencement of the vintage season, in July, 1757, he embarked for the continent; and, after landing at Corunna, traversed Spain and Portugal, where he sojourned till the end of the year, devoting much attention to the social and political state of those countries. At the beginning of 1758, he passed over the Pyrenees to France; thence down the Rhine into Germany and the Netherlands, whence he was recalled to England, in July, by a letter announcing the death of his father. Whilst at Brussels, having taken the part of a young stranger, insulted in his presence, he was challenged to fight a duel, in which he severely wounded his antagonist, and was obliged to fly the city. The death of his father entitled him to an inheritance which afforded him ample means of efficiently and uninterruptedly pursuing the studies which were necessary to the success of his designs; and, by the year 1761, he had collected most of the Dutch and Italian books on the subject of oriental literature. He had also made great progress in the Arabic and Ethiopic languages, to the study of which was owing his determination to explore the sources of the Nile.

About this time, a rupture being anticipated between England and Spain, he visited Mr. Wood, the under-secretary of state, whom he requested to lay before the minister, Mr. Pitt, a plan he had concerted, when abroad, of an expedition against the latter country, by attacking Gallicia, in Ferrol. After much negotiation, his suggestion was adopted by the ministry, but it was subsequently abandoned, owing to the Portuguese ambassador having represented the great danger that would result to his country from such an expedition. Chagrined at the failure of his military project, he meditated returning to Scotland, where the recent discovery of some valuable mines on his estate would have enabled him to live with comfort and independence, when he received a message from Lord Halifax, requesting to see him before he left London. His lordship ridiculed the idea of Bruce’s retirement; and, after hinting to him the encouragement which the king would bestow on enterprise and discovery, suggested Africa to him, as a fit region for the exercise of both; and, as a further inducement to his visiting that country, offered him the situation of consul-general at Algiers, with leave to appoint a vice-consul in his absence. He promised him, in addition, the rewards stipulated in the affair of Ferrol, and advancement to a higher diplomatic station, if he made wide incursions into the former country.

He at length acceded to the proposal of Lord Halifax, and, in June, 1762, having previously been introduced to the king, set out for Africa. He reached that country on the 20th of March, 1763; when such was his knowledge of the Arabic, that he was able to fulfill his consular duties without the aid of an interpreter. On his way thither, he passed through the principal cities of Italy, where he made several sketches of its temples and ruins; and, it appears from his manuscripts, that he also intended writing a dissertation on the ancient and modern state of Rome. Shortly after his arrival at Algiers, a dispute occurred between him and the dey, concerning Mediterranean passes, for carrying which in a form differing from that originally prescribed, several British vessels were seized and destroyed; of which, having first remonstrated with the dey, he immediately wrote to inform government. The ministry, however, who had been secretly prejudiced against him, by a party hostile to him at Algiers, treated his communication very lightly; and, in May, 1765, being recalled to England, he was compelled, either to abandon the principal design of his residence in Barbary, or to make his intended excursions as a private individual. After some consideration, he adopted the latter alternative; and, on the 25th of August, sailed for Tunis, stopping, on his way thither, at Utica and Carthage, the ruins of which cities he stayed some time to examine, making drawings of the most important parts, in which he was assisted by a young Bolognese artist, whom he had brought with him from Italy. In one of his incursions into the interior of the country, he discovered Cirta, the capital of Syphax, whence he returned to Tunis, and started thence for Tripoli, by way of Gabs and Gerba. On entering the desert which borders the latter town, he was attacked by the Arabs, and compelled to return to Tunis, where he remained till August, 1766, when he crossed the desert in safety, and arrived at Tripoli. He next proceeded, across the Gulf of Sydra, to Bengazi and Ptolometa, and shortly afterwards, set sail for Crete, when a shipwreck drove him again upon the African shore, with the loss of every thing but his drawings and books, which he had fortunately despatched from Tripoli to Smyrna. From Begazi, the place of his shipwreck, and where he was cruelly treated, he escaped, by a French vessel, to Canea, where he was detained by an intermittent fever, till the end of April, 1767, when he proceeded, by way of Rhodes, to Sidon.

On the 16th of September he commenced his journey to Balbec, which he reached on the 19th of the same month; and, having returned to Tripoli, set out, in a few weeks, for Palmyra. After making several drawings, which, as well as those of Balbec, he afterwards presented to the king, he traveled along the coast to Latakia, Antioch, and Aleppo, where he was attacked by a fever, from which he with great difficulty recovered. About this time, meditating the discovery of the source of the Nile, he left Aleppo for Alexandria, where he arrived on the 20th of June, 1768. From hence he proceeded by land to Rosetta, where he embarked on the Nile for Cairo. After impressing the bey of the city with an idea of his skill in medicine and prophecy, he sailed to Syene, visiting, in his way thither, the ruins of Thebes; and, on the 19th of February, 1769, set out from Kenne, through the Thebaid desert, to Cosseir, on the Red Sea; and from thence proceeded to Tor and Jidda, where he landed on the 5th of May. After making several excursions in Arabia Felix, he quitted Loheia, on the 3d of September, for Masuah; where on his arrival, he was detained for some weeks, by the treachery and avarice of the governor of that place, who attempted to murder him, in consequence of his refusal to make him an enormous present. In February, 1770, he entered Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, the ras of which city appointed him gentleman-usher of the king’s bed-chamber, commander of the household cavalry, and governor of a province.

On the 27th of October, after having taken an active part, in the councils of the sovereign, and effected several cures of persons about the court attacked with the small-pox, he left the capital, and set out in search of the source of the Nile, which he discovered at Saccala, on the 14th of the following November. The joy he felt on the occasion is thus described by himself: ‘It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that moment; standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, history, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns, for the course of nearly three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of armies, and each expedition was distinguished from the last only by the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in the disappointment which had uniformly, and without exception, followed them all. Fame, riches, and honor, had been held out, for a series of ages, to every individual of the myriads those princes commanded, without having produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity of his sovereign, or wiping off the stain upon the enterprise and abilities of mankind, or adding this desideratum for the encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here in my own mind over kings and their armies; and every comparison was leading the nearer to presumption, when the place itself where I stood, the object of my vain glory, suggested what depressed my short-lived triumphs. I was but a few minutes arrived at the source of the Nile, though numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would have overwhelmed me, but for the continual goodness and protection of Providence; I was, however, then but half through my journey, and all those dangers which I had already passed, awaited me again on my return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself.’

After returning to Gondar, our traveler found much difficulty in obtaining permission to proceed on his way homewards; it being a rule with the inhabitants never to allow a stranger to quit Abyssinia. A civil war breaking out in the country about the period of his intended departure, he was compelled to remain in it till the December of the following year, and took part in one of their battles, in which his valiant conduct was such that the king presented him with a rich suit of apparel, and a gold chain of immense value. At length, at the end of 1771, he set out from Gondar, and in the February of the following year, arrived at Senaar, where he remained two months, suffering under the most inhospitable treatment, and deceived in his supplies of money which compelled him to sell the gold chain he had been presented with. He then proceeded by Chiendi, and Gooz, through the Nubian desert, and on the 29th of November, reached Assouan, on the Nile, after a most dreadful and dangerous journey, in the course of which he lost all his camels and baggage, and twice laid himself down in the expectation of death. Having procured, however, fresh camels, he returned to the desert and recovered most part of his baggage, with which, on the 10th of January, he arrived at Cairo: where, ingratiating himself with the bey, he obtained permission for English commanders to bring their vessels and merchandise to Suez, as well as to Jidda, an advantage no other European nation had before been able to acquire. In the beginning of March he arrived at Alexandria, whence he sailed to Marseilles; where he landed about the end of the month, suffering under great agony from a disease called the Guinea worm, which totally disabled him from walking, and had nearly proved fatal to him during his voyage. Notwithstanding, however, the perils he underwent, and the barbarities he witnessed in the course of his travels, and particularly at Abyssinia, yet even that country he left with some regret, and would often recall, with a feeling almost of tenderness, the kindnesses he had received there, especially from the ras’s wife, Ozoro Esther, between himself and whom a very affectionate intimacy had existed.

After residing a few weeks in the south of France, he set out for Paris, in company with Buffon, to whom he communicated much valuable information which that celebrated naturalist has acknowledged in his advertisement to the third volume of the History of Birds. His health being still unconfirmed, he left the French capital in July, and made a second tour into Italy where he resided till the spring of 1774, when he again returned to France, and thence proceeded to England, which he reached in June following, after an absence of twelve years. Previously to leaving Scotland, he had contracted an engagement with a lady, whom, during his travels, he never forgot; and he was so incensed, on his arrival at Rome, on hearing that she had married an Italian marquess, that he insisted on fighting with her husband, who, however, declined the challenge. After remaining some months in London, he returned to his mansion at Kinnaird, to regulate his private affairs, which he found greatly disordered in consequence of his relations having supposed him dead, and taken possession of great part of his effects; to prevent a recurrence of which, he married the daughter of Thomas Dundas, Esq., of Fingask, who, after bearing him three children, died in the spring of 1785.

In 1790, the account of his travels, which had long been looked for with anxiety, appeared in five quarto volumes, with plates, maps and charts. The extraordinary events and discoveries which they contained, occasioned many to doubt the truth and accuracy of Bruce; and some went so far as to assert, that he had never even been in Abyssinia. Recent travelers, however, and among them Mr. Salt, one of his most hostile sceptics, have confirmed the greater part of his assertions relative to that country, though many of them still remain doubtful and unauthenticated. Such was the effect of the reports circulated against his work, that, according to Dr. Clarke, a short time after its publication, several copies were sold in Dublin for waste paper. Being, however, translated into French, his book was widely circulated on the continent; and he had made arrangements for printing an octavo edition, when, on the 26th of April 1794, he fell down the stairs of his mansion at Kinnaird, while in the act of handing a lady to dinner, and expired the following morning.

The person of Mr. Bruce being nearly six feet four inches in height, and of great muscular strength, was well suited to the enterprises he undertook and the dangers he encountered. Though his hair was a dark red, his countenance had a handsome cast; and though he possessed great urbanity of manners, his mien was dignified, and almost haughty. He paid particular attention to his dress, especially during his travels, the fatigue and danger of which never prevented him from appearing in the most elegant costume of the different countries he visited. He was an excellent horseman and swimmer, and an unerring marksman; and, for his skill in the latter capacity, was mistaken by the barbarians, who were unaquainted with the use of fire-arms, for a magician. In addition to his numerous literary accomplishments, he acquired a considerable knowledge of physic and surgery, which he practiced with great success in Africa and Abyssinia. He possessed a mind prudent and vigorous, and a spirit untameable by danger or disappointment, so that he was enabled finally to ensure the success of his most ambitious projects. In Abyssinia he discovered a plant very serviceable in cases of dysentery; and brought the seeds of it to England, where it is known by the name of Brucea, having been so called by Sir Joseph Banks, in honor of its finder. An island in the Red Sea, on the coast of Abyssinia, also bears his name.

The doubt which prevailed respecting the truth of his narratives, was in a great degree owing to the habit he had of telling his own exploits, which he embellished with a coloring of romance calculated to weaken the credulity of his hearers. His account of his travels became the subject of much disputation; and Dr. Vincent, who defended it, allowed that Bruce was in some instances mistaken, by aspiring to knowledge and science which he had not sufficiently examined; though, he adds, ‘his work throughout bears internal marks of veracity, in all instances where he was not deceived himself; and his observations were the best which a man, furnished with such instruments, and struggling for his life, could obtain.’ He was often pompous and ostentatious, especially in his character of consul. The Bey of Cairo, having, after a long conversation, ordered him a purse of sequins, he declined accepting any thing more than a single orange, saying to the Bey, who requested to know his reason, ‘I am an Englishman, and the servant of the greatest king in Europe: it is not the custom of my country to receive pecuniary gratuities from foreign princes without the approbation of our sovereign.’ In alluding to his pictures of Palmyra and Balbec, which are in the king’s library at Kew, he used to speak of them as ‘the most magnificent presents ever made in that line by a subject to a sovereign.’ It has been said, however, that he received for these drawings the sum of £2000. He was descended, on his mother’s side, from Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, a circumstance he was excessively proud of; and he once said to a friend, that ‘he was entitled to give his servants royal livery.’ He occupied much of the latter part of his life in the formation of a museum, in his own house, which contained many rare and valuable curiosities.

He expressed an utter contempt for all kinds of suspicion with regard to his veracity, which he could never be prevailed on to take any pains to substantiate. When requested by his friends, to alter or explain any thing, he would sternly repeat, ‘What I have written, I have written!’ with which words he concluded the preface to his travels. ‘Dining out, one day,’ says Major Head, ‘at the house of a friend, a gentleman present observed, “that it was impossible the natives of Abyssinia could eat raw meat;” on which, Bruce without saying a word, left the table, and shortly returned from the kitchen with a piece of raw beef-steak, peppered and salted in the Abyssinian fashion, and said to the gentleman, “Sir, you will eat that, or fight me;” the person addressed chose to do the former, when Bruce calmly observed, “Now sir, you will never again say it is impossible.”’ Major Head also relates the following anecdote: ‘Single-speech Hamilton, who was Bruce’s first cousin, one evening said to him, “that to convince the world of his power of drawing, he need only draw something then in as good a style as those paintings which it had been said were done for him by his Italian artist.” “Gerard!” replied Bruce, very gravely, “you made one fine speech, and the world doubted its being your own composition; but, if you will stand up now here, and make another speech as good, we shall believe it to have been your own.”’

RAIL ROAD RRIDGE.

VIEW ON ELK CREEK.

He used to teach his daughter, who was scarcely twelve years old, the proper mode of pronouncing the Abyssinian words, ‘that he might leave,’ as he said, ‘some one behind him who could pronounce them correctly. He repeatedly said to her, with feelings highly excited, ‘I shall not live, my child, but you probably will, to see the truth of all I have written thoroughly confirmed.’

JOHN LEDYARD.

John Ledyard was born about 1750, at Groton, Mass., and after having received a good education, and passed some time among the Indians of America, for the purpose of studying their manners, went to Europe about the year 1776, and made the tour of the world with Captain Cook, as corporal of a troop of marines. On his return to England in 1780, he formed the design of penetrating from the north-western to the eastern coast of America; and, after some conversation on the subject with Sir Joseph Banks, who furnished him with some money, which he expended in sea stores, with the intention of sailing to Nootka Sound, he altered his mind, and determined on traveling overland to Kamschatka, from whence the passage is very short to the opposite shore of America. Accordingly, towards the close of the year 1786, he started with only ten guineas in his pocket, and on his arrival at Stockholm, he attempted to traverse the gulf of Bothnia on the ice, but finding the water unfrozen, when he came to the middle, he returned to Stockholm, and proceeding northward, walked to the arctic circle, and passing round the head of the gulf, descended on its eastern side to St. Petersburgh, where he arrived in March, 1787, without shoes and stockings, which he was unable to purchase. In this state, however, he was treated with great attention by the Portuguese ambassador, who often invited him to dinner, and procured him an advance of twenty guineas on a bill drawn on Sir Joseph Banks, and finally obtained him permission to accompany a convoy of provisions to Yakutz, where he was recognized and kindly received by Captain Billings, whom he had known in Cook’s vessel, and with whom he returned to Irkutsk.

From hence he proceeded to Ocsakow, on the coast of the Kamschatkan Sea, whence, in the spring, he intended to have passed over to that peninsula, and to have embarked on the eastern side, in one of the Russian vessels trading to America; but finding the navigation obstructed he returned to Yakutz, to await the termination of the winter. His intentions, however, were suddenly frustrated by the arrival of an order from the empress for his arrest, which took place in January, 1788, without any reason being assigned for such a proceeding. He was deprived of his papers, placed in a sledge, and under the guard of two cossacks, conducted through the desert of Siberia and Tartary, to the frontiers of Poland, where he was left, covered with rags and vermin, and prohibited from returning to Russia on pain of death. In this situation he set out for Kœnigsberg, on arriving at which town, he obtained five guineas, by drawing a bill in the same manner as before, with which sum he proceeded to England. On his arrival, he called on Sir Joseph Banks, who proposed to him to undertake a voyage to Africa, to discover the source of the river Niger, at the expense of the society for making discoveries in that part of the world; an offer he accepted with avidity, and being asked when he would be ready to set out, he exclaimed, ‘To-morrow morning!’ On the 30th of June, 1788, he embarked for Calais, passed through France to Marseilles, reached Alexandria on the 5th of August, and on the 19th arrived at Cairo, where he had almost completed the preparations for his departure to Senar, when he was seized with a billious fever, and died in the latter end of the following October.

Mr. Ledyard was a man of extraordinary vigor both of mind and body, and no record exists of a more bold and perserving adventurer. In person he was of the middle stature, strong and active; and in manners, though unpolished, pleasing and urbane. ‘Little attentive,’ says his biographer ‘to deference of rank, he seemed to consider all men as his equals, and as such he respected them. His genius, though uncultivated and irregular, was original and comprehensive. Ardent in his wishes, yet calm in his deliberations; daring in his purposes, but guarded in his measures; impatient of control, yet capable of strong endurance; adventurous beyond the conception of ordinary men, yet wary and considerate, and attentive to all precautions; he seemed to be formed by nature for achievements of hardihood and peril.’ He appears to have undergone much sufferings during his Siberian tour, and, like Mr. Park, more than once owed his life to the kindness of women. ‘In wandering,’ he says, in his journal, ‘orve the plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar; if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, these actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught; and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a double relish.’

He left some manuscripts behind, which were printed in London a few years after his death, in a work called Memoirs of the Society instituted for encouraging Discoveries in the Interior of Africa. A work, entitled Voyages de MM. Ledyard et Lucas, en Afrique, suivis d’extraits d’autres voyages, was also printed at Paris in 1804. Mr. Ledyard, in his journal, evinces great powers of observation, and a sound judgment and understanding. Some idea of his sufferings may be formed, in reading the following extract: ‘I have known,’ he writes, ‘both hunger and nakedness to the utmost extremity of human suffering. I have known what it is to have food given me as charity to a madman; and I have at times been obliged to shelter myself under the miseries of that character, to avoid a heavier calamity. My distresses have been greater than I have ever owned, or ever will own, to any man. Such evils are terrible to bear; but they never yet had power to turn me from my purpose. If I live, I will faithfully perform, in its utmost extent, my engagements to the Society; and if I perish in the attempt, my honor will still be safe, for death cancels all bonds.’

JOHN BAPTIST BELZONI.

John Baptist Belzoni was born about 1780, at Padua, in Italy, and passed the greater part of his youth at Rome, where he was preparing himself to become a monk, when, he observes, ‘the sudden entry of the French into that city, altered the course of my education, and being destined to travel, I have been a wanderer ever since.’ In 1803, he visited England and married; when, having but scanty means of subsistence, he went to Scotland and Ireland, and exhibited, at various theatres, a series of experiments in hydraulics, a science to which he had devoted much of his time in Italy. Finding, however, that he received but little profit from these exhibitions, he determined on a public display of his strength, which he put forth in feats that astonished and attracted crowded audiences wherever he appeared. Though, at that time, very young, he was six feet seven inches in height; and such was his elephantine power, that he could walk across the stage with no less than two-and-twenty persons attached by straps to different parts of his body. In 1812, he exhibited at Lisbon and at Madrid; and sailed afterwards to Malta, whence, he set out for Cairo, for the purpose of making a machine for raising water out of the Nile to water the bashaw’s gardens. Whilst on his way to the palace, he received so severe a blow on the leg, that he was confined to his bed thirty days before he could be introduced to the bashaw; who merely observed, on being told of Belzoni’s wound, ‘that such accidents could not be avoided where there were troops.’